I am in the process of cleaning up then engine bay on my 1997 Accord (UK Model). I have just got to cleaning the cover on the manifold, but as i have removed it the bottom half seems to be really rusty and on the bring of crumbling into pieces. Do I need to get a new cover to replace the old one or can I just leave it off. All it seems to be is a piece of sheet metal. I wondered if I could just clean up the pipes and leave them exposed, or if the cover did something to reflect heat down away from the bonnet. Anyone got any ideas?

 

Are you talking about the gasket?

 

Where each of the 4 exhaust pipes come out and join together to go back under the car, there is a metal plate about 30cm x 45cm in size with "caution hot" embosed on it, covering them. Hope that explains it better Im still new to the world of mechanics.

 

Ohhh okay, that's the heat shield. Don't worry about it unless you want to replace it for aesthetic reasons.

This site is for people new to mechanics, good job doing this stuff yourself

 

Cheers for the help and encouragement. I will leave it off and clean the pipes up to look good (hopefully). I think the engine should be shown off rather that covered up by lumps of steel

 

I dunno about yours, but my oem exhaust manifold is ugly and rusty as hell haha. It'd be hard to make it look good. You can get an aftermarket header that'll look nice though.